


Scars

by ealamusings



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2348843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ealamusings/pseuds/ealamusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While working together on the Memory Book, Katniss and Peeta take a step towards healing and growing back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games Trilogy, or Mockingjay which inspired this story.  
> I do not own Katniss Everdeen or Peeta Mellark, the characters in this story.  
> My thanks to Suzanne Collins for her incredible story.

It’s been two weeks since Peeta and I started working on the Memory Book. A few days longer than that since we started sharing a bed like we used to in what seems like another life. Up until that first night that he stayed over, we‘d been drifting in and out of each other’s orbit - sharing meals, a little polite conversation about simple things. It was never exactly awkward, but it was ... expectant. Both of us know, and have been through, too much by this point, for it to be completely uncomfortable to be in each other’s presence. But we both had seemed stuck since Peeta returned, not knowing how to move forward.

But all that changed that night and some line was crossed, some invisible barrier was breached. Peeta and I regained a measure of our old comfort with each other. We rediscovered how we used to be each other’s strength and embraced a natural ease in engaging in our respective chores. I hunt, Peeta bakes, but by night we are each other’s banisher of nightmares and source of security when the bad memories threaten like wolves at the door. Partners in the day-by-day art of getting by. It was also that night that I remembered my family’s plant book, and I knew the path to how we might break the impasse. To open up, to let go, to take the next step. A way for both of us to heal.

Since then, as we work on the Memory Book, where we remember and record the people and events too important to trust to memory, Peeta and I have found our footing again, by talking about our shared past. Usually about other people, mind you, never ourselves and the deep stuff. Not yet. In the process we’ve nevertheless been able to share our own sense of loss. But we’ve also recaptured the goodness of what those people’s lives represented. The weight of guilt has eased ever so slightly.

Spending all this time together focussed on our task, Peeta sketching or painting, me writing the words, has meant I’ve had plenty of uninterrupted time in close proximity with him. It’s given me the excuse and opportunity to observe him again. I remember always being quite fascinated with watching him work. I’m taken back to a time between the Games when we were less damaged by our experiences. When we felt normal, or at least a close proximity to it given our circumstances.

It is a familiar and comforting thing to be this way again. Peeta is once again lost in another world. I can see by his intense but animated expression that it seems to be a good place, as he works on an initial sketch of his father’s act of kindness with the cookies on reaping day. And I am, once again, captivated by him, and those eyelashes that never cease to intrigue me.

But I only get to observe one side of his face. The left eye is visible but the other is concealed by a shaggy length of blonde hair. Finer points of grooming haven’t exactly been a priority since we returned to Twelve. More important things like getting out of bed, eating regularly, and developing routines around old familiar activities have been the rule. And now the Memory Book takes up a significant portion of our waking hours. All part of the healing that has become a daily vocation. Our need to honor those we’ve lost, forgive ourselves, and for Peeta, to remember what was real.

A few days after Peeta returned, I took the scissors to my ragged locks and tried to even out their choppy lengths. The fire had established the parameters. I just did my best to even it all out. It hangs just barely to my shoulders now. I can’t braid it back the way I used to yet in a single plait, but I can manage two of them, one on each side of my face. Peeta seems to approve.

But it isn’t the same for Peeta. I doubt he’s done anything with his hair in the months since the Capitol fell. I know it’s more than just an oversight for him, instead it is closer to some kind of pain. Because under my watchful scrutiny, I also notice he subtly tilts his head to one side now as he works. That one blue eye visible to me as he works, the other always obscured under a curtain. Is he even aware that he does it, I wonder? Unconsciously covering the scars that I know live under the hair on that side of his face from his temple and up across his forehead.

It’s not like Peeta to be vain. I know it’s about the reminder of what those scars represent. Such a horrible day. I think of myself, spared the worst on my face, but I know that the long sleeves that I wear are too warm on such a balmy summer day. I’ve caught myself tugging down the sleeves past my wrists, or drawing the collar up a little tighter around my throat. Something he does too.

So I know he also feels it, that reminder when walking past a mirror or feeling the other’s eyes stealing an unintended glance during conversation. I’ve thought a lot about those scars lately. How I got mine. How Peeta got his though we’ve never discussed it. I think I knew when I saw him in the burn unit even if it didn’t fully sink in at the time. I was so lost in my own grief. In the weeks after I got back to Twelve I had time to reflect and put the pieces together. How I was pulled to safety from the mutts in the sewer, catching sight of his scarred hand at the vote. One look at those hands across the table from me as we silently worked on the book and I just knew.

But it isn’t good or right to hide like this. I won’t have it. Not anymore. Not him. In an impulsive moment before I can second-guess myself, I unbutton the cotton shirt I’m wearing. This gets Peeta’s attention. There’s a small curious sense of satisfaction sparking inside me, but I’m nervous, too.

“It’s getting too hot these days for long sleeves, don’t you think?” I say by way of explanation, trying my best to keep my tone as nonchalant as possible. I wonder if he can tell. I slip the shirt off, down to the thin knit camisole underneath. It’s not like Peeta hasn't seen me in this state of undress before in the Quarter Quell, but I can’t help feeling vulnerable beyond the scars that now are plain to see.

But I press forward, determined. I reach across, tentatively, and momentarily I’m taken back to another place and time. I rake the hair back from his forehead and away from his face. When he starts a bit, reflexive at my gesture, I smile a little and say with as calm and indifferent a voice as I can muster, “You really need a haircut. I can’t imagine how you can work on anything with all this mess in your eyes. We should take care of that sometime.”

What’s really got my voice unsteady is not the scars but the blue eyes that startle me. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them this intense and close up, looking at me quite like this. It’s not the sort of easy, warm look of affection he’s started to give me this past couple of weeks. The effect it has on me is unsettling. But neither of us break eye contact, and then Peeta lets go of the breath that has obviously been trapped in his chest and I feel my own breathing start to normalize as I swallow the lump in my throat.

I drop my hand back to the table and pick up my pen again. But I realize that this needs further explanation. With a small voice, not much louder than a whisper, I say what it is that I need to explain to him.

“We have scars we shouldn’t need to hide. They are reminders, just like the Memory Book of something worth remembering. We have nothing to hide or be ashamed about.” I feel a small anxiety rising as I continue. “Because we got them trying to protect others. I tried to save Prim because… of how…” I hesitate. Suddenly I realize where this is going. I’m not saying this right, and I don’t want to make Peeta uncomfortable by the presumption that the two of us are marked by the same motivation.

“Because of how much you loved her,” Peeta finishes for me quietly. “Because we were protecting someone we… care about.” He’s not quite ready to say the words to me, but those eyes say it anyway. I’ve seen that look before. I’m acutely aware in this moment of how much I’ve missed it, so direct and honest. It makes my heart catch in my throat so I swallow and all I can do is nod in agreement as I drop my eyes back to the paper in front of me.

But in that moment something shifts between us. I can feel it. Like ice breaking up on the river in the spring. Like a dandelion pushing up through the last thin crust of old snow. Something hopeful. I try to keep the muscles in my face or the color in my cheeks from giving me away or disrupting this new synergy. For some reason it seems like Peeta is my prey and I mustn’t scare him off now that he’s revealed himself to me. This shared vulnerability just makes the heat in my face grow, so I get up from the table ostensibly to get a glass of water.

“Are you hungry?” I ask from the sink. “I have leftover roast goose from our dinner last night with Haymitch that I could heat up. Or we could make sandwiches out of it.”

“Sounds good,” he replies looking over his shoulder at me. “I could run over to my place and bring back one of the loaves I made this morning. Or maybe make a pie with the strawberries you gave me yesterday?”

Good, I think. He seems actually pretty calm given our discussion. And I feel my own anxiety waning.

“That would be perfect, but..”

“But what?” he asks.

“Could you make it cheese buns?” I can’t help the slightly higher pitch of my voice or the awkward smile on my face when I say it.

Apparently Peeta finds it amusing because he smirks and gives me that easy laugh of his. “Sure, I can do that, …for the girl I sleep with.”

I throw the dish cloth at him for teasing me, but I reply, “See you soon?”

He nods, his faced relaxed and introspective, “See you soon.”

He gathers up the papers on the table into neat piles and heads for the door. But I stop him with one last comment. “And after, we’ll cut your hair.”

“Okay.”

And with that he disappears out the door into the summer sunlight.


End file.
